body

There are 2 posts tagged body (this is page 1 of 1).

Care, Body, Dying: Rethinking Existential Psychotherapy

Care, Body, Dying: A Fresh Approach to Existential Psychotherapy

We often think of existential therapy as primarily concerned with death and mortality. Irvin Yalom’s classic book “Staring at the Sun” come to mind as a prime example of this approach. While death and mortality are certainly important themes, my experience as both a psychotherapist and a philosopher has led me to see human existence as shaped by three fundamental, interconnected dimensions that go beyond just confronting death.

Care

The first dimension is care. Unlike other mammals that quickly become independent, human infants spend months completely dependent on others for survival. The term for the first 3 months of baby’s life is ‘the fourth trimester’ – underscoring that at this stage the baby is still en embrio that exists outside of the womb. This early experience of requiring care shapes our psychological development in profound ways. Our need for care doesn’t vanish as we grow older – it transforms and manifests itself in various ways throughout our lives, sometimes in patterns we don’t even recognize.

Body

The second dimension is our embodied nature. We exist through our bodies, which both enable and constrain our experiences. Our bodies make demands, offer pleasures, and provide the raw sensations that eventually become thoughts and feelings. By learning about the care that the body needs we gain access to sensations of pleasure and develop strategies for avoiding pain. This embodied existence is not just a philosophical concept – it’s a lived reality that shapes every aspect of our experience.

Dying

The third dimension is what I call “dying” (distinct from death). This isn’t about the moment of death, but rather the awareness of our finite nature that colors our everyday experience. It’s present not just when we face serious illness or loss, but in small moments throughout our lives – watching children grow, noticing the first gray hair, seeing seasons change.

These three dimensions – care, body, and dying – are not separate issues to be “solved” but fundamental aspects of human existence. Often, our psychological struggles stem from attempting to deny or escape these basic conditions of life. Consider how modern consumerism often functions as an elaborate system of distraction: we buy products promising to fill emotional voids (care), transcend bodily limitations (body), or ward off signs of aging (dying).

In therapy, I’ve observed how these dimensions manifest in countless ways. Someone might seek care through a pattern of unfulfilling sexual relationships, or confront their mortality through high risk sports. Another person might struggle with accepting bodily limitations, or chase success as a way to prove they don’t need care from others.

The path to psychological wellbeing often involves not transcending these conditions but accepting them as fundamental to human existence. There’s a peculiar freedom in acknowledging these limitations. When we stop exhausting ourselves fighting against these basic facts of existence, we can direct our energy toward living more authentically within them.

This doesn’t mean resignation or defeat. Rather, it means engaging with life from a place of greater honesty and self awareness. We can recognize our need for care without being consumed by it, acknowledge our bodily nature without being limited by it, and face our mortality without being paralyzed by it.

In our culture, which often promises escape from all limitations through technology, consumption, or various forms of self improvement, this message might seem counterintuitive. But perhaps true psychological freedom comes not from transcending these fundamental aspects of existence, but from embracing them as the very ground of our humanity.

Further Reading

For those interested in exploring existential approaches to psychotherapy further:

  1. “Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death” by Irvin Yalom – While my approach differs from Yalom’s focus on death anxiety, his accessible writing provides an excellent introduction to existential concerns in therapy.
  2. “The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel van der Kolk – Though focused on trauma, this book offers profound insights into embodiment and how our physical experiences shape our psychological lives.
  3. “Existential Psychotherapy” by Irvin Yalom – The classic text in the field that provides comprehensive background on traditional existential approaches.
  4. “The Divided Self” by R.D. Laing – Offers a unique perspective on embodiment and existence that complements the care dimension discussed in this post.

The mind-body connection according to Spinoza and its implications for therapy

One of the central topics in psychology and philosophy is the intriguing relationship between the mind and the body. The 17th Century philosopher Benedict Spinoza offers a prespective that challenges our conentional understanding of this connection. Spinoza’s opening gamibt is a surprising claim that we don’t trully know what our own bodies are capable of.

According to Spinoza, our bodies remain unknown to us because we habitually place the mind between ourselves and our physical being. This raises an interesting question: What might happen if we found a way to liberate the body from the domination and control of the mind? How might we walk, talk, and love as bodies first?

Spinoza’s view stands in stark contrast to the Cartesian perspective, which sees the mind as separate from and in control of the body. Instead, Spinoza proposes a different model. He suggests that the body and the mind are like the two parallel rails of a train track; they don’t have a hierarchical relationship but always operate together, in parallel. This concept, known as mind-body parallelism, has profound implications for how we understand ourselves and our experiences.

One curious consequence of this view is that the mind and body are connected in ways we might not expect. Because the mind is not ‘on top’ of the body but parallel to it, anything that affects the mind necessarily affects the body, and vice versa. This interplay between mental and physical states opens up new possibilities for understanding health, well-being, and therapeutic practice.

So, what significance does this have for therapy? First and foremost, it serves as a reminder that the mental and the physical are not two separate realms, but intimately interconnected aspects of our being. Changes in one inevitably cause changes in the other. To live a good life, then, one must take care of both mind and body as a unified whole.

Consider, for instance, how sadness often manifests physically: in sagging shoulders, a bent back, and a lowered gaze. If Spinoza is right about the parallel operation of mind and body, it might be possible to alleviate feelings of sadness by consciously changing one’s posture. This idea aligns with modern somatic therapies and embodied cognition theories, which emphasize the role of the body in shaping our mental states.

Spinoza’s philosophy also resonates with contemporary therapeutic approaches that integrate physical and mental health. Mindfulness practices, for example, often involve paying close attention to bodily sensations as a way of influencing mental states. Similarly, exercise is increasingly recognized not just for its physical benefits, but for its positive impact on mental health. Spinoza is challenging us to move beyond the notion of the mind controling the body and instead explore the dynamic interplay between the mental and the physical selves.